#Literary Culture Discourse Blog

[centrally-unplanned]

I thought this was a well-framed piece on changing tastes in US literature - there absolutely has been a marked shift in what kinds of books are widely read over the past ~50 years. It also slots into some of my own themes around "what happened to all the capital-g Great People" discourse - will there be a new crop of "American Authors" a la Hemingway, Updike, etc, or is that passé, and if so why? Yingling (correctly imo) pushes back on the "death of literary fiction" as being something created wholesale by the internet and trends like declining attention spans - the death happened well before the internet took over everything (it was firmly established by the 2000's), and people do in fact read long books, just as much as they used to (most people never read hefty literature in any era).

Yingling instead posits that this shift is also not due to a change in reader taste, but instead more in "supply" - the death of easy revenue streams for literary authors, changes in how publishers operate, the chasing of awards and genre niches over general readers. To simplify, he believes that one could be an Updike of Our Era, if only one of sufficient talent truly tried and the gatekeepers pivoted to encouraging that. There is truth to the supply issues, but here I think he is overreaching - the supply is instead reflecting the changing demand.

This error is most exemplified in one of his arguments around why it hasn't changed, namely that people still read old literary fiction:

For one, people still read plenty of literary fiction, what they don’t read is contemporary literary fiction. Books like Pride and Prejudice, War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov, etc still sell many thousands of copies every year, more than even big hits in contemporary literary fiction.5 And look at any survey of contemporary audiences' favorite books. Plenty of literary fiction there.6 So I think there��s a strong enough warrant here that the ‘taste-change’ hypothesis can’t be right either — unless the internet made people’s tastes magically shift away from contemporary literary fiction but not classics.

I don't specifically blame the internet, but I think this is revealing about the author's blindspots - people's tastes absolutely "magically shift" to classics over contemporary works! There is this thing, it is called status? Humans love it, they do so much because of it, and sometimes they even read books due to it! People are reading classic literature precisely because it is classic, it is "the canon". They are also Schelling Points to make reading social - you can easily form a book club around Wuthering Heights because everyone is "supposed" to read it; no one has to read whatever is #46 on the bestseller list today. That in fact drives a lot of media consumption more generally - people read the "hot new thing" and the classics so they can be a part of the wider conversation of society.

From this lens, from where the conversation is, I think you can see more shifts in the demand side that our author misses. He compares the best selling fiction of the 1960's, which was mainly literary fiction, to a sample from 2023:

It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover It Starts with Us by Colleen Hoover Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros Atomic Habits by James Clear2 Dog Man: Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea by Dav Pilkey

Which highlights that three of the five are romance novels (the others are a kid's book, which I don't think says anything, they don't "compete" with literary fiction; and a... nonfiction self-help book? So a typo by the list makers? Let's just ignore that). Now, for one, I would note that this being heavily female is saying a lot about how demand has changed, but that is a bit too obvious to belabor. Instead, I wanna interrogate that word "romance" - I don't think it means what the author wants it to. Let's look at It Ends With Us:

The story follows florist Lily Bloom, whose abusive relationship with neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid is compounded when her high school boyfriend Atlas Corrigan re-enters her life. It explores themes of domestic violence and emotional abuse. Based on the relationship between her mother and father, Hoover described it as "the hardest book I've ever written".

I'm not saying this is Blood Meridian or anything, but this isn't Harlequin either - it is blending romance tropes with the introspective, the memoir, and some topical politics. At the same time that "literary fiction" has declined, other genres have "grown up" - they cover a lot more diverse ground, targeting demos more specifically and expanding their narrative and thematic scope.

There have been several literary cultural movements specifically playing with this kind of broadening - the decline of lit fic coincidenced with the "memoir boom" of the 90's & 2000's, where "ordinary people" wrote creative-fiction-esque retrospectives on their lives, which you can see covers a lot of similar ground. Hell, to tie it back into gender a bit, if I wanted a serious story about politics & war back in the day, pulp fantasy wasn't gonna do that for you - but it will today! The 2000's was an entire decade of fantasy novels "growing up" (ymmv on how well ofc), and you can get your discourses on the nature of fascism Star Wars™ flavored if that is your tea.

Yingling essentially rests his hat on the idea of the "general reader" being out there still, like literary fiction has deserted them. But I think at least in part, this is a story of evolution, not devolution; in the 1970's we didn't make enough non-general literature to make specialists of the masses. But we do now, they have learned what they like, and aren't particularly interested in coming back to generalist fare. With caveats ofc, there were always be the Hot New Thing and universal appeal, etc - but being sufficiently talented is not going to make that the standard again.

[eretzyisrael]

Every week we are reading about professions that are pushing out Zionist Jews from their fields.

In the field of international law:

...The professor saw a trend among the topics Israeli and Jewish colleagues were pushed to pursue. Those who continued their academic work in international law either wrote about Palestinians as victims or Israel’s violations of humanitarian international law. “Israelis would either write about IP law or business law, or about how Israel is being awful, violating human rights and all of that.”

This stood out because the professor noticed their colleagues from Latin America and China weren’t expected to work on topics that criticize their home countries as a condition for receiving faculty support. Yet when it came to Israelis, it was “clear to us this is what we need to deliver on.”

In the professor’s discussions with the senior faculty, especially the progressive liberal Jewish faculty, it came through clearly that support for Israeli students was conditioned on being the right type of Israeli, “and there were fellowships and scholarships and grants available to students who are willing to do that. In Hebrew we say that a person knows which side of the bread is buttered, right? So it’s pretty clear what pays off is to distance yourself from a mainstream Israeli kind of discourse.”

Understanding who holds the power and influences decisions is important in any profession, the law included. “You need to have the support and the mentors to advance in your career,” the professor explained, “and for that, you look for cues on what should I do, how do I make these people like me. Why would you bother, why would you take the risk of saying something that is controversial or put yourself in the position of protecting Israel or speaking on behalf of Israel when there is only a price to pay for that?”

“For example, there is an institute that gives out scholarships to doctoral students who are writing dissertations about Israel. I was advised not to take their money because then it’s going to be on my CV and people will interpret that as if I don’t have the right kind of politics. So even when there are economic incentives to write different kinds of scholarship,” under the current academic incentives, the professor concludes, scholarships and point-interventions will not work “because it’s more about selection and authority and networks and connections and less about economic incentives.”

Mental health professionals:

The anti-Zionist blacklist is the most extreme example of an anti-Israel wave that has swept the mental health field since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks and the resulting war in Gaza, which has seen the deaths of thousands of Palestinian civilians. More than a dozen Jewish therapists from across the country who spoke to Jewish Insider described a profession ostensibly rooted in compassion, understanding and sensitivity that has too often dropped those values when it comes to Jewish and Israeli providers and clients.

At best, these therapists say their field has been willing to turn a blind eye to the antisemitism that they think is too rampant to avoid. At worst, they worry the mental health profession is becoming inhospitable to Jewish practitioners whose support for Israel puts them outside the prevailing progressive views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Authors:

Over the past several months, a litmus test has emerged across wide swaths of the literary world effectively excluding Jews from full participation unless they denounce Israel. This phenomenon has been unfolding in progressive spaces (academia, politics, cultural organizations) for quite some time. That it has now hit the rarefied, highbrow realm of publishing — where Jewish Americans have made enormous contributions and the vitality of which depends on intellectual pluralism and free expression — is particularly alarming.

It feels like history is repeating itself.

Jews founded the Jews' Hospital in New York in 1855, now known as Mount Sinai Hospital, partially as a response to the need for a place that Jews could be treated without feeling like outsiders, as every other hospital at the time was aligned with various Christian groups. It followed the founding in 1850 of the Jewish Hospital in Cincinnati. When Mount Moriah Hospital Mount Moriah Hospital opened in New York in 1908, the Forward reported that Jews "can open the door and enter as if to your own home without a racing heart and without fear."

Brandeis University was founded in 1948 "at a time when Jews and other ethnic and racial minorities, and women, faced discrimination in higher education."

Jews who were facing discrimination formed professional associations and schools in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, for physicians, scientists, and trades, like the Hebrew Technical Institute in New York and the Kehillah which attempted to be an umbrella of professional and educational associations in New York (and that the antisemite Henry Ford railed against.)

It appears that it is time for Jews in the professions where they are being blacklisted must start to form Jewish professional organizations, educational networks and institutions anew, where Jews can network and publish as they want without having to please the "progressive" crowds.

But the arc of history is going backwards, and this is only a Band-Aid. The problem is with America and the world itself, and Jews cannot solve this problem alone - the dangers of the progressive bigots are a threat to the free world and that needs to be addressed at the macro level.

[gwynrieldreams]

Literary Analysis and Authorial Intent

Authorial intent is the concept that refers to the author’s intented interpretation of their work as defined in the piece itself.

Actual Intentionalism is the standard intentionalist view that the meaning of a work is dependent on authorial intent.

Hypothetical intentionalism is an interpretive strategy that navigates between assuming a writer's actual intent and disregarding intent altogether, focusing instead on the best hypothesis of intent as understood by a qualified audience. This approach prioritizes the perspective of an intended or ideal audience, which employs public knowledge and context to infer the author's intentions.

New Criticism argues that authorial intent is irrelevant to understanding a work of literature; the objective meaning is to be found in the pure text itself. The text is the primary source of meaning, and any details of the author's desires or life are secondary.

Reader-Response is the interpretation of the work as defined by the reader’s experience of the work without the influence of the author’s intention. It denies the stability and accessibility of meaning completely and argues that reading is determined by textual and also cultural constraints.

These are just a few methods of literary analysis. As you can see, the academic world can't even agree on one method of literary analysis, so I don't expect the acotar fandom to give us the right answer.

You can't say that the only thing that matters is authorial intent and the readers' interpretation can only be restricted to that. This can basically turn author's intention into a wild card in order to dismiss any criticism of the text. Every reader has a different set of values and different life experiences. It's only natural that they will interpret text differently.

We can never know the true intent unless the author tells us and their intent can change over time, the author could lie as in to not spoil their books, the author could have problematic views. Moreover, the author's intent may defer from how their work was actually executed and I believe this is why SJM's books create so much discourse when it comes to certain characters like Nesta, Cassian, Tamlin, Feyre and Rhysand.

Authorial intent isn't end all be all. Just because you are satisfied restricting yourself to that, it doesn't mean we aren't allowed to criticise and interpret the text however we perceive it. Nor does it mean that you're right and we're wrong.

Canon text ≠ Author's intent This is so important because a lot of you believe that these two are one and the same.

Also, just because we like to criticise the main characters, it doesn't mean we don't enjoy the books or that we even dislike them as characters.

I will agree, though, that there are certain blogs whose content is basically anti acotar, anti sjm, anti everything and I don't understand why they even bother with these series, when they can't find one positive thing about them. I would understand reading the series and making a few anti posts to get it out of their system but they're dedicating their entire blogs on hating these books.

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

The bulletin board jikook blogs are part of society's larger move away from intellectualism and toward fast, hastily made content that produces the most gain (likes, follows, interactions etc). It's the content-ification of what used to be everything from journalism, rhetorical writing, and art/literary writing. Those jikook bulletin board blogs took over when they used their accounts to post asks that were essentially propaganda about jikook blogs that posted opinion pieces and original posts. It's the power of propaganda and appealing to the lowest common denominator at all times - followers will always be won over by their parasocial moment in the sun when the blogger they deify posts them. And, if all you do is post your followers? Perfect! Everyone loves you. And you never have to share real meaningful opinions because that's what will make you risk backlash by the sheep and other content-mills. That's what they are - content-mills. 💁🏻‍♀️

How could we forget witch hunting practices? The potential to address any issues directly and even begin a conversation which would have dealt with the intersection of art and music criticism, cultural differences and real one to one debate, was essentially a lost opportunity the moment people ran to bulletin boards to air out their complaints. And that's when it became a space that allowed propaganda to be spread/created, without any sort of critical thinking on their part.

But that's just one aspect and based on what happened since then, it became obvious that when people gain followers, they also gain fans willing to defend them. Which it's all very silly in a way, but regardless of the level of importance, our behavior at its basics is the same.

What has been perpetuated and had the biggest influence to this day (because I see new blogs doing the same thing) is the focus on remaining/becoming content-mills. I often complained about the lack of originality in terms of fandom discourse because all that's left in the majority of ship-focused blogs is either posting anons without including their own contribution, or writing summaries of events that took place or videos that are available for everyone. It is in line with the rise of anti-intelectualism because everything is dumbed down. It is simply content of the lowest quality.

[addictedtowords16]

Okay a quick note.

Over the last year I got really into Neil Gaiman's writing, specifically Good Omens and Sandman. Within the few months I was actively reading his stuff, they had a tremendous impact on the literary side of my brain. And I can't discount that.

Howeverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr I also definitely feel the need to acknowledge the sexual assault allegations earlier this month. Me sharing words from projects he was a key part of is not me dismissing those allegations.

I am tagging his name in the posts with quotes from Sandman and Good Omens, so feel free to block that of course, if you are choosing to distance yourself from his writing. I am considering the quotes from those projects to be nods to Terry Pratchett and the array of artists who worked on Sandman, instead of Neil.

There are also plenty works of literature that people read and love that are written by not-great people, and those are still revered as great works of writing. I'm not saying Neil is guilty of the allegations, but we have no strong reason right now to say that they are baseless and I'll always believe people when they come forward saying they've been subject to abuse. But he's still a great writer. And I am personally choosing to distance the writer from the writing in this case, as I have with many things before. And honestly, my respect for him as a writer has made my abrupt lack of respect for him as a person all the sharper.

I personally think that the need in internet culture to make moral judgements on every person who has ever even remotely been in the spotlight is... not great. It's just not sustainable, and you can't vet every creator of every piece of media you'll ever consume. And if you do make those moral judgements, guess you're never going to read another classic novel ever again.

The world is complex, people are complex, and the things we put into the world are complex. It's okay to read a book and recognize the nuance of "this person did some not great things but me reading this book is not a reflection of my own morals." It's also okay to take a step back.

Just don't berate people for their choices.

That's my reasoning for still including those quotes, just wanted to mention it before they start showing up over the following weeks.

Edit: Dear lord please stop commenting on the Neil Gaiman quotes. It's only happened a few times but come on. I'm blocking you and deleting your comments as soon as I can. I'm very familiar with both sides of this argument and you're not going to change my mind, especially when you tell me that this random post with five notes is being actively detrimental. This is how I feel about the situation. Deal with it. Block me if you want to. Block the Neil Gaiman tag. But commenting will literally do nothing except make me angry about the whole moral judgement aspect of internet culture.

This blog is not going to be a vessel for the discourse around the whole separation of the art and artist thing. I'm just sharing cool quotes that a small handful of people see.

[sourireofsymphonies]

⟢ ❝ 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞'𝐬 𝐧𝐨 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐈

𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐛𝐲𝐞 ❞ - Maya Von Doll

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

Ah. What brings you here? Have you perused upon thousands of tags, found this keepsake of my innermost feelings and truths lying there in beneath a pile of dozens of recollections of another's dream or fear? Or have you simply intended to search for a pod of dolphins and stumbled across this blog? Either way, you're welcome here even if you do not intend to stay- or intend to outstay your momentary visit till the end of time, if one chooses to apply such a fickle concept here.

Alright enough with my incessant rambling. My name's Alora and I'm a sophomore who'd probably like-no need a pint of canned motivation right now. Every inch of my soul contains a juxtaposition or so and my personality has been a jumbled amalgamation of paradoxes and foils as of late. I'm neurodivergent and I mainly use she/her though I would neither mind nor care if you used other pronouns with me. My hobbies include acting, reading, drawing and writing mediocre literary pieces. A special emphasis on the last one. I'm also a hellenic and pop culture paganism practitioner so take that as you will. More information about me would be provided below if anyone's curious.

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

Games: Genshin Impact, HSR, Magia Exedra, CRK, (Most) Love Nikki Games, DUTP, PJSK, Life Makeover, Bandori, DJD4

Interests: Classical Literature, Neoclassicism, The Renaissance and the Enlightenment, Mythology, History, Anthropology, Philosophy, Psychology (Still learning), Theater and Religious Studies

Media: EPIC: The Musical, Heathers, Shakespearean Plays, PJO + sister works, SGE (The school for good and evil), The land of stories, Evillious Chronicles, Winx Club, Regal High, Ever After High, MLP, Harry Potter (Regrettably and I do not condone JK Rowling's Actions), Magical girl shows and Alien Stage, WICKED, Betelgeuse

Current Books I'm reading: N/A though I'll start reading Romance of The Three Kingdoms once my exams are over

BYI: I'm autistic so tone tags would be appreciated. Please do be clear with your boundaries and what you expect of me. I cannot stress the importance of proper communication so if I'm making you feel uncomfortable, please tell me that. Likewise, I can and will confront you quite bluntly if you're crossing my boundaries. I can also be dry at times but it's exam season so clemency would be very much appreciated.

DNI (Do not interact) : Basic DNI criteria + Pro Israel people, Darkshippers, TERFS, Heavily involved in online discourse and people who support trump

Favorite Song: Monster (Yoasobi)

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

[onewomancitadel]

an old fashioned blog post

I hope everyone in SEQ will be alright... I am thinking of one of my readers once upon a time who was from Brisbane which is where the cyclone is making landfall!

I am away with only my laptop at the moment which has increased its bluescreens of death and it seems like even with Libre Office backing up every minute I have still ended up losing writing. It was "only" my original fiction, not fanfic, and only a few minor edits lost, so not as huge a deal as when I once had to rewrite a quarter of an entire chapter (but I did it fairly speedily from memory and I was quite proud of myself) which for Skimming Eye sits around 2,000-2,500 words.

But of course I am leaving out the fact that there is an old desktop here I might try unearthing since it may well be more stable than this newfangled machine. It is a project to occupy myself.

I mentioned Libre Office because I am making the move from Word. Firstly because I am logged out and secondly because I am thinking of switching over to Linux in the near future since I am tired of Windows being stupid*. Apparently it also runs Sims 2 better; one day it will be considered stupid and girlish to use Linux I sure hope (ha). Yes I'm familiar with distros and I know things. I find openSUSE attractive because it has a distro called Tumbleweed - I herd u like Tumblr so I put Tumblr in your OS so you can Tumble whilst you Tumble etc. For the purposes of anybody trying to computersplain, I am probably not going to use openSUSE.

*If I have to use third party programs and registry edits to fix this dump then it isn't good is it. All I play are old games that hardly run on Windows anyway!

I finished True Grit recently - the novella - and it was painfully good. Genius, swift prose. Maybe one of my favourite protagonists ever. Proof that men can write girls plenty easily. Interesting reading that some of the reception to it and Charles Portis' writing is that because he can be comic (especially deadpan) his work is considered "less serious" in the canon. Silly.

I am quite sly on my blog about original fiction and ironically they are projects which feel less serious and more freeing than fanfiction. Fanfiction by nature has limitations imposed upon it. These are powerful limitations. Limitation and necessity is the mother of invention etc. and this in some way can make fic feel both easier and harder to write. I'm especially glad that the discourse has finally caught up and accepted that original fiction and fanfiction are separate disciplines but honestly they had to learn the hard way (the way it always is). Once upon a time you'd be drawn and quartered in the public square for such an opinion. But you will note that original fiction suffers when you apply fanfiction practices to it. I especially hate the false intimacy of it. In fandom, you are close to each other by proximity. There are fewer hierarchies. When you publish a work, I am not your fellow fan or a friend. The comfort that one enjoys in fandom - or ought to enjoy, certainly in feminine-dominated ends - is not the comfort extended to professionally published authors who are profiting off the endeavour and contributing to a body of literary canon for which we are all participants and critics.

Of course the reductionist will say, Vergil and Dante wrote fanfiction! Which is blatantly untrue. You are comparing separate practices of copyright cultures as opposed to actual literary traditions. And make no mistake: fanfiction is a literary tradition - that theoretically should be the most free and experimental - but it has its mores and its craft.

Obviously I have been slow going with updates. This is because I have things wrong with me and I had a tantrum. If people are mean to me I am not going to update. I do not intend to hold my work hostage and to my polite and lovely readers I do admire you and am very grateful for you, more than you could possibly know, and I understand this is bait for trolls but I also don't care anymore. Nothing I have tried has worked. I am sensitive and delicate. So be it. I am not putting out updates if an individual chucks a tantie in my inbox, simple as. I am the only one allowed to have tantrums. This is a dictatorship.

That being said now I am finally being honest I will say that the past year I have been preoccupied with a story I intend to post in full - no updates! - to circumvent how much I have grown to loathe that process. Similarly for Skimming Eye I will do my very best to prepare the last two chapters at the same time (the length of four, good grief) and the epilogue to finally be rid of this beast. Which leaves the elephant in the room - The Rusted Knight and the Fall Maiden - who needs to be dealt with. The work has been sitting complete for a year but admittedly this other story has advanced a lot of the ideas I wanted to explore better. I'm still of half a mind about uploading the the last couple of updates. Tonally, I think my skills have improved in juggling those fairytale aspects working with absurd tragedy that R/WBY does in its odd way. I also think Jaune's POV made it needlessly diffcult. You will see what I mean. I leant too much into V9 trying to reconcile aspects of it I admittedly disliked and simply I think any story with Cinder in it evades that narrative discordance they slipped into that volume. It's the same reason everything was good when Ruby was alone or having visions of Summer and Raven. I wish I could watch V8 for the first time again.

I have never been this straightforward about my work but I am past the point of being secretive, I think... I have been through a lot the past few days that have made me reconsider how much I try to tightly police myself around people in my everyday life so they don't cotton onto the fact I am eccentric or get mad at me and hurt me. And I have realised that honestly I have failed. They still get mad at me and hurt me. The fact that fandom reminds me so much of dealing with abuse is honestly so funny.

I also have a post about Midsommar I am considering sharing. I'm not sure that I want to as it is such a controversial film, but I love stories which facilitate multiple readings - it is so unique in that aspect in that it does not evade ambiguity but celebrates multiple levels of meaning.

I have not given dates for updating because I hate dates. And since I'm still away for a fortnight it will be a while until I'm in a position to prepare posting anything to AO3 as that is my last editing process - I will have Firefox and my word processing document side by side with the prepared HTML code as I do a last final read through and make sure everything is nicely formatted. I'll do that a few times.

I have no idea why anybody would read my stories. That is of course frankly absurd. I don't want to think about it too hard. In some ways people being kind to me is a lot harder than people being mean. I am barely fit for living. I just don't know how to say thank you enough, and I don't deserve it, and I feel so pathetic because it feels so rare and precious and people don't understand how much that means to me - there's this part of me that bruises at the fact most normal people give and receive that type of admiration or affection all the time, and to me it is like water in the desert.

Well, to end this happily I have so many original fiction projects I'm in an embarrassment of riches. I have stories that will take me years to get through so I am ordering them in priority and in terms of research scale that will be necessary to undertake. I think it's extremely valuable to have a writerly identity that exists separately from fandom. So I suppose that is an update. I am very trying.

[tiger-in-the-flightdeck]

D, I and O

D: What was the first thing you ever contributed to a fandom?AhahahHAHAHAHA!!! Oh man, it was this. Something that I'm 100% sure is older than a lot of my followers. I can't even confirm exactly how old it is, because the website that I originally posted it on doesn't exist anymore.

I: Has tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why? So, once upon a time, in the days of yore, while I was still a total novice at this whole Fandom thing, I picked up a DVD from the library. What's this?? I thought. Someone made a modern version of my favourite literary characters??? Wow, I wonder if anyone else thinks these two guys are in love. I should check online! And in my naivete, I did. And for a while, it was great! Sure, I created my blog in the midst of the 'You shouldn't bite someone's dick without permission' discourse, and sure I was accused of appropriating my own culture because I didn't agree with the sentiment that an AU about the characters as cavemen(I think? Fuck it's been forever) was being maliciously racist, and sure I received dozens of death threats when I cited examples that suggested one of the characters was recovering from an ED, and SURE I eventually stopped writing for years after being repeatedly harassed and misgendered and threatened by readers when I asked them to stop speaking to me offensively. And SU- Sorry. Where was I going with this? Oh right! Eventually, the thing that put me off entirely was when a fandom divide cropped up and they started fighting over whether or not there was a Conspiracy involved with the writers/directors/media/actors/actors' wives/the fucking queen, i don't know. I figured it was just silly fun, and said I didn't buy into said Conspiracy. Hoo, boy. The flood of hate was epic. So when 'that side' started chirping on about how they were so sweet and kind and generous compared to their Enemies, I said 'Uh, and what about this message I got? And this one? And this other? And these thirty more?' which got a response of 'Oh, those are obviously from people on your side sending you those messages pretending to be True Believers, to make us look bad. Or you probably sent them to yourself.' At which point, I blocked about a hundred people, added a crap ton of stuff to my blacklist, disabled anon, and noped the fuck outta there. Kept the beloved friends I made, though!

O: Choose a song at random, what ship does it remind you of? This one reminds me of TimKon. Specifically 100 Failed Cloning Attempts TimKon.

And this one isn't exactly random(and warning for lots of flashing lights), but it gives me of Constantine/First of the Fallen vibes.

Specifically from the First's point of view...

With young, scruffy punk John.

Which I definitely haven't written.... *CoughDevil'sMusicCough*

[doloresdisparue]

i'm SO GLAD i found your blog i'm only 19 chapters in and already i was dying for literary discourse about it i NEEDED to hear something other than misinformed pop culture regurgitations from my well meaning friends

I'm very happy to be able to provide that and hope you have a great time with the rest of the book (as much as you can ever have a great time with the topic) but also you have an incredibly funny url in this context

[knuckleduster]

really annoying that whenever i write about aesthetic blogging as a culture everyone assumes i should get into aesthetic philosophy bc it's like in the name even if that's not at all what im actually talking about. unfortunately right now im at a point where it would absolutely make sense to get into aesthetic philosophy for my discussion of aesthetic posters. avoiding this by instead working with literary discourses on the concept of style instead

[randomnumbers751650]

If you asked me the question “would you prefer a work that is good but it doesn’t me or a work that represents me but it isn’t good?”, I would simply refuse to answer this question. So,, with this in mind, I’m going to give my very personal thoughts on representation in media. Due to matters of space (this essay is 2.5k words long, I could've written more), I’ll just focus on national representation.

Representation has been a hot topic in popular discourse. At first I thought why is does this have to be such a theater for essentially discursive civil wars? But, as I absorbed more ideas, I can see why it’s so important. If I say that I prefer a good work than a representative work, I would be lying the moment I see a character in a not very good work and say “wow, this has just my experiences and issues”.

The biggest problem is that this is issue is so complex – the academic definition of complex, in which it’s not possible to separate an issue and analyze it everything else constant – I mean, in other words, representation isn’t everything that makes a person pay attention to a story. Speaking as a Brazilian, why do I sympathize, judge to be relatable characters with names that sound nothing like the names of people around me?

During all my life, I’ve been fan of stories produced in other countries, that are imported just because it’s successful in central countries, the Global North to use a common academic term. If I go to a bookstore, in the sections of fantasy and sci-fi, I’ll just see American and Western European names and if I see a name outside this, I’m pretty sure it made some success in the central markets. It feels like fantasy and sci-fi aren’t really genres that authors from the Global South really engage or readers want to see.

I exaggerate, obviously. If I search a little, it’s not too hard to find communities of Brazilian fantasy and sci-fi writer. Plus, traditional literary genres and horror seem to be genres resistant to this issue, mostly because (I believe) they are genres that deal directly with issues directly related to the people of a country/region, so they have much greater chances of having the most visible spaces in bookstores than other genres.

Plus, Brazilian stories were fundamental to my formation, especially Turma da Mônica comics (available in English as Monica’s Gang). Especially in the 1990s, Mônica comics had an amazing pacing, much better than anything else written. Recently, I started reading the webcomic Rei de Lata (Scrap King) and it’s one of the best written superhero-inspired, dystopia works that I’ve read recently, but it’s written in Portuguese and it doesn’t have the same distribution network as the big ones. But still, the number of foreign stories is much larger. And I’m part of the problem, as I will explain below – spoiler: I’m writing a webnovel in English instead of Portuguese.

I’m a fan animation and if you read this blog, you might guess that I like anime. I really enjoy how it uses the medium so creatively. It’s funny if you stop to think, because it tells the stories of characters who have nothing to do with Brazil. And yet I can see their struggles being relatable or interesting to others. But I have to admit I’m just interested in Japanese animation, people always say most weebs that enroll in Japanese studies courses abandon after one semester and I think I’d be one of them (to the chagrin of my friend); but “anime”, as a umbrella term, is a weird style, I tried learn how drawing for a while (stopped because I’m too old, anxious and non-innocent enough to be a visual artist) and one of the lessons I learned in practice is how weird anime is, in terms of realism.

And yet, I could mention so many series and characters that I just love. These stories have elements that can transcend the specific cultural references and can be something that’s accessible and enjoyable for people so far from the original geographic and historical context. And it’s not like that: we still see adaptations of legends from the Ancient Greece yearly. The stories of Hercules, Jason, Odysseus still inspire so many adaptations and retellings. We reference them liberally.

Well, now that I have the age I have and the degree I have, I can ask what makes the stories of a country/culture/region more accessible than others, to the point I know more stories from other countries than mine. The answer is simple: these central countries managed to make industries out of it. As much as writers want to produce art, the economy needs to be fed. The paradigm of companies of this economy is that the shareholders are the most important entity, in the sense that companies must serve them first (and only according to more radical adherents). The average shareholder – not the kind that buys 30k worth of Nintendo shares just to ask why they aren’t making a new F-Zero – doesn’t care about art, they care whether their money printer is working or not and will threaten to leave if their money printer isn’t printing money. Think of that next time you see a pointless Disney live-action remake.

So, the creation of cultural industries mean that the talents will simply be concentrated in certain locations. If you watch a Brazilian movie, you will see that, in the intro credits, it’ll take five minutes to go through all sponsors. This concept is completely alien in a Hollywood movie. In addition to the highly competitive environment, they will prioritize stories that are easier to get high budget, that have an acceptable risk-return ratio and so on. One of the current main tenets of marketing is to create a representative consumer and the more narrowed your product is to your representative consumer, the higher the chances of being a success, even if it doesn’t make a lot of money.

Writer, then, have to live close to the industrial centers. Movies, to use the most obvious example, are highly technological products, that move lots of adjacent industries and services. Not just because they’re closer to their bosses, but because they can share experiences and improve each other. And so the newest technologies. There are technical aspects to the writing of anything and the more distance you are from these centers, the chances of you producing a good work become lower. Do not underestimate networking – if there’s a class in my masters’ that messed me up was Social Network Theory because you can prove with data points that no matter how hard you try to a position, chances are you’re going to lose said position to a person who will earn the double, doing half the work, just because they’re better connected than you. So reading the room, dealing with the crew and, especially, who’s funding you is a trait indispensable to get your work done in a way that’s acceptable to you. Living far from these centers will lower your networking. And, because of them concentrating all these traits, they can afford more failures than the rest – failure affordability is something ignored in technological analyses, lots of projects will fail so that one succeeds, piles of garbage to produce one golden product.

Lacking this funding, technology and networking makes a content creator from the Global South cannot compete well with what they have (not just the Global South, central countries such as France have always combat the influx of American media). So, what do they have to do? Either adjust expectations to a (much) smaller market (in which the same issues of the main centers exist, just in smaller scale) or move up to the industrial centers. The second option requires a lot of planning and essentially shoot in the dark, which means there’s a chance of failing, and you’ll still be competing with others.

Representation is also subjugated by this economic logic. Once a writer asked me about representation of Brazilians in media. Brazil has over 200 million inhabitants, which means it’s a massive market to be explored, so they have an incentive to make a character Brazilian because it might attract Brazilian viewers, independent if it’s accurate or not. I recently watched Casually Comics’s video about Yara Flor, a Brazilian Wonder Woman successor, and she’s a half-Native Brazilian, half-Ancient Greek semi-goddess. I enjoyed that Brazilian folklore was represent, but I haven’t seen the comics, but the comment section seems to have some agreement that her characterization resembles more the experience of Hispanic Americans than actual Brazilians, who don’t necessarily have the same experiences (I lived in the US for six months and I have absolutely no plans to ever go there for more than a week ever again; a lot of Hispanic American writers prefer to write about the experiences of living in two cultures because it resonates with them and their audiences, but that doesn’t interest me, so if I’m reading/watching their stuff is for other reasons). I really wish I was in the meeting that decided she’d be a Brazilian character.

And, of course, there’s the issue of what Brazil is being represented. Other Brazilian regions than the Amazon, Rio de Janeiro and, sometimes, São Paulo, are virtually forgotten (especially the Northeast, which is unfortunately subject of prejudice in southern areas) and they have very different cultures that a foreigner might not be aware of. And that’s because Brazil is big. Take a less populous country, like Paraguay or Uruguay, I wonder how much they are asked about representation, like that writer asked me. And this is not something that people can easily deny, we like to see ourselves referenced in other works. A small example of how representation matters (and because it’s small, I feel it has more power) come from a fanfic – I had a friend who was writing a megacrossover between various mecha shows and he referenced Luxembourg being defeated by the fic’s enemies; Luxembourg is a very small country, known for being a fiscal paradise, and yet a Luxembourgian reader was elated to find his country represented.

The question is why do we have to live in such a representation limbo? Why do we have to wait the unlikely chance that a talented foreign writer has a special interest in our culture and present the story based on it to be profitable enough to be produced and distributed? It’s like the ending scene from Cats! I only watched the reviews of that terrible 2019 movie, but I can’t help but to think of that, different cultures are waiting for their name to be called and be allowed in the balloon. I feel the debate of representation is like that. Instead of relying on the cost-benefit analysis of large corporations, why can’t we decentralize the production of stories? Well, their massive distribution and logistics networks is an easy answer to that. But that also create a very uncomfortable problem because everybody wants to be represented, but there’s a limit of what can be done because world-reaching movies/books/comics/series are expensive and risky.

Representation is also good. One of the most admirable things of the Encanto movie is how it’s a magical realist book adapted to the theater. There was some effort put on it. But if it was bad, would it be a valid form of representation? I refuse to answer that.

Another thing that made me write this is my interest in Chinese gacha games, like Arknights and Genshin Impact. I feel the stories of those games have a better sense of the problems the Global South experiences (especially Arknights on the contradictions of economic growth), since China is still technically part of this group, so they offer something that American and Japanese stories kind of lack. But seeing leaks of what Natlan is supposed to be makes me feel it's going to cause a very large representation civil war when it comes, and I think they’ll make a…subpar work in representation. Natlan is supposed to be based on Pre-Columbian America, but, in a world that has nations entering the equivalent of Modern Era, it’s rather questionable, especially because Pre-Columbian America had civilizations and advanced national entities. I care because…I live in this side of the world, even if I have little contact with my country’s native culture (reminder: the Brazilian racial democracy myth is a myth that hides the violence that was the construction of the national identity), I feel a sense of obligation, and I like Genshin, but I’m not part of Genshin’s primary demographic target and I don’t think a lot of people that participate of the discourse knows that, so my opinion doesn’t really matter to MiHoyo. Still, there’s a chance they do something right. I like the channel Accented Cinema because his videos make a point that even if representation is not correct, if it’s made with love and respect, it’ll still be something valid, something that can a mark on someone.

So, the question of “why these stories that have little to do my context influence me so much?” remains unanswered. Due to their logistic structure, they have larger chances of resonating with an international audience. I was going to talk more about politics, but, no, the text is already too big. But I want to talk about how I’m part of the problem here.

I started writing fanfics in English because I started reading them and I said to myself “I could write as good as a native and I could practice my English”. I was kinda full of myself, but I really wanted to train my English because that’s what people to do have an edge in this competitive globalized society. So 15 years later, I’m writing an original novel about a girl in Japan go gets isekai’d to a fantasy world, because I like Japanese animation and other media (like Touhou, this exists because I thought the gag bullet hell videogame series started by a drunk programmer with interest in Japanese mythology was awesome) because I like isekai and I see it as a medium for good storytelling on cultural shock. I am not writing it in Portuguese because I wanted more people to read it, including my international friends. The result is that my novel is a marketing nightmare in its premise and most of my friends aren’t really interested (a friend was so concerned for months and she finally confessed one day she didn’t like it with tears in the DMs, but I said that I noticed that and I was waiting for her confession, because I wouldn’t just tell her in her face, and ended “no worries, nobody does”). Like a Brazilian saying says “you can take a donkey to the river, but you can’t make it drink”. I wonder what would happen if I had written in Portuguese…probably nothing would change.

Culture is made of many influences, sometimes they compete, sometimes they synthetize, but, having a degree in economics, we should remember that economics was called the “dismal science” and I see this dismality every day in the globalization, to the point I’ve asked myself if it’d be better if we never left our swamps and hovels. I know the answer to this question is negative, but seeing all the negative consequences in the history (especially the Atlantic Trade), it makes me weak to answer no…

[trainingskart]

Jawaharlal Nehru University Notable Alumni

Jawaharlal Nehru University Notable Alumni

Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), established in 1969, is one of India’s premier institutions of higher learning. Known for its academic excellence, vibrant student community, and intellectual discourse, JNU has produced some of the most distinguished personalities across various fields. From politics and academia to literature and activism, its alumni continue to make significant contributions globally.

In this blog, we will explore the notable alumni of JNU who have left a lasting impact on society.

1. Politicians and Public Leaders

Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar

India’s current External Affairs Minister and former Foreign Secretary. An accomplished diplomat, he has represented India on international platforms and played a key role in shaping the country’s foreign policy.

Nirmala Sitharaman

The current Finance Minister of India, Nirmala Sitharaman, has also held the Defence Minister portfolio. She is one of the most influential figures in Indian politics today.

Sitaram Yechury

General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Yechury is a prominent leader known for his advocacy on social issues and working-class movements.

2. Academics and Intellectuals

Raghuram Rajan

Former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India and an internationally recognized economist, Rajan is an alumnus of JNU’s Centre for Economic Studies and Planning.

Jayati Ghosh

A renowned economist and professor, Ghosh has contributed extensively to the field of development economics and has influenced policy-making on global platforms.

3. Journalists and Media Personalities

Barkha Dutt

An award-winning journalist, Barkha Dutt is known for her fearless reporting on significant political and social events in India. She has been a prominent voice in Indian media for decades.

Rahul Pandita

A celebrated author and journalist, Pandita is known for his reportage on conflict zones and stories of human resilience.

4. Authors and Literary Figures

Arundhati Roy

Booker Prize-winning author of "The God of Small Things", Roy is also a well-known social activist, using her writing to advocate for human rights and environmental causes.

Geetanjali Shree

A celebrated author, Shree’s novel "Tomb of Sand" won the International Booker Prize, adding further recognition to JNU's literary legacy.

5. Activists and Social Reformers

Kanhaiya Kumar

A well-known student leader and activist, Kanhaiya Kumar gained prominence for his advocacy of student rights and freedom of speech in India.

Shehla Rashid

A prominent student activist and social reformer, Rashid has worked extensively on issues related to human rights and social justice.

6. Conclusion

Jawaharlal Nehru University continues to foster critical thinking, leadership, and social responsibility among its students. The diverse achievements of its alumni in politics, economics, literature, media, and activism are a testament to its academic rigor and vibrant campus culture.

As JNU maintains its legacy of excellence, its alumni will undoubtedly continue to influence and inspire future generations

.

[frank-desiderio]

The Transformative Power of Poetry: Exploring the Depths of Expression

Poetry has long been a powerful tool for self-expression, allowing individuals to explore their innermost thoughts and emotions. Through the art of poetry, writers can examine their own experiences, confront personal struggles, and find clarity in their feelings. Using language in its most artistic and distilled form, poetry allows a deep dive into one’s subconscious, often leading to profound self-awareness and discovery.

Writing poetry serves as a mirror, reflecting the writer’s internal world in a revealing and therapeutic way. Poets can organize their emotions, find meaning in their experiences, and reframe painful events through the creative process. Whether written as an outlet for grief, joy, or confusion, poetry offers a unique space where individuals can explore who they are and what they believe, fostering personal growth and healing.

The Universal Language of Poetry

One of the most remarkable aspects of poetry is its ability to transcend barriers, speaking to people across cultures, languages, and periods. Regardless of geographic or linguistic differences, the themes explored in poetry resonate with universal human experiences. Love, loss, hope, and struggle are emotions felt by all, and poetry has the power to articulate these shared experiences in ways that connect us all on a deeply emotional level.

People from diverse backgrounds can find common ground and share their voices through poetry. Whether a classic work of literature or a contemporary poem posted on social media, poetry can unite people across time and space. Its ability to speak to the heart of being human makes poetry an enduring art form that continues to bring people together and spark conversation.

Poetry as a Catalyst for Change

Throughout history, poets have played an essential role in shaping societal movements and advocating for change. Whether through addressing social injustices, political struggles, or environmental concerns, poetry has long served as a tool for protest and reform. Poets like Pablo Neruda, Walt Whitman, and Audre Lorde have used their words to challenge the status quo, raise awareness about inequality, and inspire action for social change.

Poetry’s ability to capture the emotional essence of societal issues makes it a powerful force for advocacy. Carefully chosen and skillfully crafted words can move people to action, ignite a sense of collective responsibility, and encourage reflection on the world around us. In this way, poetry plays a vital role in shaping our time's cultural and political discourse.

The Therapeutic Value of Poetry Writing

Writing poetry can be a form of emotional release, offering a therapeutic outlet for individuals dealing with life’s challenges. Many people turn to poetry during difficult times to process their emotions, explore complex feelings, and cope with mental health struggles. By giving structure to emotions that may otherwise feel chaotic or overwhelming, poetry helps individuals make sense of their experiences constructively and meaningfully.

The creative process of writing poetry encourages mindfulness and reflection, allowing writers to gain clarity on their emotions. Many people find that putting their feelings into words brings relief, offering a sense of catharsis. Writing poetry can also be a form of self-care, providing a space for personal expression and healing. Writing allows individuals to transform pain, confusion, or stress into something tangible, promoting emotional well-being in an effective and empowering way.

The Accessibility of Poetry in the Modern World

In today’s digital age, poetry has become more accessible. With the advent of social media platforms, blogs, and online publications, poets can instantly share their work with a global audience. Poetry no longer requires a formal publishing process or exclusive access to literary circles—now, anyone with an internet connection can participate in the poetic community.

This accessibility has opened the doors for a diverse range of voices to be heard, from emerging poets to those previously marginalized by society. Poetry is no longer confined to traditional forms, allowing for language, structure, and genre experimentation. Spoken word, slam poetry, and multimedia poetry are just a few of the exciting innovations that have emerged in recent years, expanding how people can engage with the art form. As a result, poetry continues to evolve, becoming more inclusive and relevant to contemporary audiences.

Poetry’s Enduring Legacy Across Time

The enduring nature of poetry speaks to its timeless relevance and cultural significance. For thousands of years, poets have written about the human condition, capturing the essence of life in verse. Whether it is the epic tales of Homer or the emotional lyricism of contemporary poets, poetry's power to speak to our shared humanity has remained constant.

As societies evolve and new forms of communication emerge, poetry remains vital in the cultural landscape. It serves as a history record, offering insight into each generation's values, struggles, and triumphs. Poetry’s ability to transcend the limitations of time and speak to the core of the human experience ensures that it will remain a vital part of our cultural fabric for generations to come. As long as stories are told and emotions are expressed, poetry will continue to inspire, connect, and transform.

[problematic-fodlan]

>sends confession that more people should acknowledge the non-western influences and cultural context baked into the game >people should also stop imposing a western reading of the game that ignores the asian influences (buddhism, the romance of the 3 kingdoms, japanese/asian culture) >mfw anon says its racist to say the game was made by asian devs with primarily asian culture and influences in mind >proceeds to impose a solely western reading on the game (the CoS is the Catholic Church, Byleth is Jesus, the game is commentary on the medieval catholic church) >condescending end paragraphs that reiterates my point of viewing fiction through different lenses

absolutely peak ragebait anon, 11/10. your lab-crafted response to overlook the main point of my ask (fe3h meta readings and opinions overlook the asian influences of the game), embody the strawman i was referring to - incredible demonstration, absolutely no notes from me you get extra credit. this is how you do ragebait, take notes for this blog, if you ever want to start a 2 week long discourse - this is how you should phrase your confessions

on the off-chance that anon is being unironic and sincere, i will only reply once and with this: interesting how your default is calling the original take racist for referring how fans often (keywords) ignore and overlook the asian influences of fe3h - twisting my words to shoehorn the accusation of racism that the Japanese Devs can't research or understand European influences (because i said the CoS uses the aesthetics of Christianity while primarily having buddhist influences)

when you arrogantly claim that the CoS is "most definitely drawing on the Abrahamic faiths", when the entire narrative skeleton of the game is from Romance of the Three Kingdoms (a deeply asian influence) and consistently employ buddhist elements, a non abrahamic faith btw, (enlightment, ignorance vs truth) - maybe, just maybe. the CoS and the devs did not draw abrahamic faiths as a primary inspiration

you admit that "obviously the game is influenced by its Japanese origin" yet choose to completely ignore how it factors into the storytelling and characters. a basic part of literary analysis is factoring in the culture, background, biases and surrounding influences of the author. sure, you can make the reading that fe3h can "comment on western history/religion/philosophy/etc" - but the issue that in doing so, you end up ignoring and overlooking the non-western histories, religions and philosophies in the process.

"one of the most interesting parts of analyzing fiction is exploring the ways the story can be understood when viewed through different lenses" and here you are viewing the game in only one lense.

… hmm almost as if that was the main point of the initial confession that fe3h fans overlook the non-western perspective of the story

-

[mutantstudies101]

006 - Lecture: A Study in Patch

Hope you have all your memories Students! Your professors are BACK and this time they're talking about one of the great loves of their lives: Logan Wolverine and his time as the elusive Patch!

Highlights of this lecture include: Examining the issues of Orientalism surrounding Wolverine, how he fits into archetypal pop culture roles in the 20th century, exploring what it means to have a Japanese writer take these Orientalist elements, and running off into the woods!

Content warning: some of the discussions in this episode briefly mention topics of domestic abuse, the brutal killings of women, and a tangent about the Canadian government's treatment of First Nations people. Additionally, as stated in the episode, Orientalism is a complicated topic with no clear answers on how to handle it but often leads to the exploitation of the cultures and people it is discussing.

You can follow Mutant Studies 101 on Twitter @Mutant101Pod and on Instagram @MutantStudies101 and Morgan @beakerbarnes

Special Thanks to Ollie (@olliephresh) for providing our theme music and Hayden (@mcuwaititi) for our graphic design work.

 Transcript:

Sources:

Bloodsport. Directed by Newt Arnold, Cannon Films, 1988.

Chris Claremont and Frank Miller. Wolverine. Marvel Comics, 1982.

David C h. “Techno-Orientalism and the Yellow Peril in the Wolverine Movies.” The X-Men Films: A Cultural Analysis, Rowman &Littlefield, 2016.

Keith Chow. “In Defense of The Wolverine.” The Nerds of Color, 3 Dec. 2013, https://thenerdsofcolor.org/2013/12/03/in-defense-of-the-wolverine/.

Landen Kennedy. “At the Intersection of Past and Future: Orientalist Aesthetics in The Wolverine.” Cinemablography, 28 Sept. 2020, http://www.cinemablography.org/blog/at-the-intersection-of-past-and-future-orientalist-aesthetics-in-the-wolverine.

Larry Hama and Marc Silvestri. Wolverine. Marvel Comics, 1988.

Nao Tomabechi. “Recycling the Other: The Role of Nostalgia in Superhero Comics’ Orientalism.” Panic at the Discourse: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 1, no. 1, 2019, pp. 37–46.

Nash, Geoffrey P., editor. Orientalism and Literature. Cambridge University Press, 2019. Cambridge Core, Cambridge University Press, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108614672.

Philip Metres. “Same As It Ever Was: Orientalism Forty Years Later.” Literary Hub, 23 Jan. 2018, https://lithub.com/same-as-it-ever-was-orientalism-forty-years-later/.

Susan J Napier. “The Wolverines’ Burden: Orientalism and the Superhero.” Huff Post, 20 Aug. 2013, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-wolverines-burden-ori_b_3763815.

The Karate Kid Part II. Directed by John G Avildsen, Columbia Pictures, 1986.

The Last Samurai. Directed by Edward Zwick, Warner Bros. Pictures, 2003.

Varisco, Daniel Martin. Reading Orientalism : Said and the Unsaid. University of Washington Press, 2007, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ucb/detail.action?docID=3444471.

Subscribe: Spotify

[lexi-is-legendary]

What the hell is this blog for?

Book reviews so I can keep track of my thoughts without having to write them every time like I'm doing for things I've watched (or read online).

Media literacy, as in how it functions, its purposes, structures, or techniques, and how to do better literary analysis, critical thinking, and nuanced writings of my own opinions. This is just something I'd like to get better at so I figured I might as well have it here.

Media and art, for things related to the general concept, its importance, and its genre conventions. This is just a super broad description, mostly for tagging/sorting.

Rambles about other entertainment I like or fan culture related things.

Also, notes from essays, articles, or research papers that I found interesting, had specific thoughts on, helped me learn something new, or even just had similar or contradicting points to something else I've read. I just think it would be cool to have here.

Maybe language learning related things like reviewing textbooks/video courses, restating key points, keeping track of worksheets, organizing the resources I'm using, writing journal entries or essays in/about my target languages, etc.

And other things I think about a lot.

One thing I'd really like to do is spend more time reading and watching things created by or primarily geared towards women, lgbtq people, and poc. Why? Because the majority of the things we see in mainstream media, the things we see often on Tumblr, are heavily dominated by white, cis male characters. Shipping also tends to revolve around male characters, which is fine in itself but is also part of a wider trend of people dismissing female characters for being "badly written" or "uninteresting", removing or diminishing characters of color, or is a result of little to no women or poc in the original franchinse in the first place. It also tends to happen in series or franchises that do not have a canon mlm couple.

Series focusing on these groups may be less popular in terms of fanbase or lesser known due to lack of promotion/lack of production, and I want to give these a chance. I know not everything will be a masterpiece, I know they won't all be to my interests, but it's good to challenge my comfortable perspective enough to try. The solution to discrepancies in fandom and my own disregard for these stories is just something I personally would like to do.

This is mostly because I've complained about how these characters are treated in series or framchises that do not intend to cater to them or have very little interest in exploring them, and then continued to watch series primarily written by and acted by white men. If I'm going to complain, I might as well look for things to satisfy that interest.

Anyway, I do this without any intention of shipping discourse or accusing anyone of being a bigot for liking the things they like. But it IS important to consider why mainstream and niche media tend to fall into these patterns.